Zyah turned back from the car, screaming his name, running toward them until Keys and Maestro intervened, blocking her path.
“You alive, Player? You better call out if you are. Your woman is a little anxious. And Jonas needs your statement,” Czar said. “He’s a bit edgy right now.”
“Fucking asshole nearly shot me,” Player groused. I’m fine, baby. Stay there with Alena. We’ll go get your grandmother. She can’t stay in the house. It’s a crime scene. We’ll arrange for her to stay with Lizz. I think Lizz is going to need her right now. Reaper and Savage told Czar Francine fell over the bluffs. He was grateful he could tell her the truth. They really did think she had fallen. She’d been backing up and, in the fog, perhaps hadn’t seen how close she was. She’d been crying as well.
I think she threw herself over the edge, Player. She was very distraught. She didn’t want Lizz to know what she’d done. He kept taunting her.
Player couldn’t take the tears in her voice. He went to her immediately, wrapping his arms around her. “Jackson, tell Jonas I’m taking Anat and Zyah to Lizz. They’re going to need one another. Then I’ll come to him. You can talk to them at Lizz’s.”
Jackson started to protest but changed his mind and waited, just like Jonas, for the detectives to come to work the officer-involved shooting. They had asked for help and none was available, but they had filed step-by-step reports of their findings and what their fears were prior to their operation. They had contacted the department for additional manpower, but the deputies were scattered across the county, and they had relied on the law enforcement that was close to them, which was something they often had to do in an extremely rural area. Now both men had to wait for the detectives. Fortunately, there were plenty of witnesses.
EIGHTEEN
Player watched Zyah wander around the master bedroom, barefoot like he was, in a sheer shirt that dropped to her knees. He found it sexy as hell. The shirt could have been a man’s dress shirt but was transparent, showing off her luscious curves. She had them in abundance. Her tits moved with every graceful step and sway of her hips. Her ass was so perfect he wanted to take a bite out of it. Instead, he sat, sprawled in one of the chairs in front of the long row of flickering flames, eyes half-closed, just watching her. He could watch her forever.
She’d been wandering around the house without talking for some time. He didn’t push her. He knew she was working things out in her head and she needed space. He gave her that. He didn’t want to, fearing she might try to distance herself from him, but pushing her wasn’t the answer either. He’d done what he could to show her she mattered to him. It wasn’t always going to be easy. He knew that. There were things about his club she was going to have to accept that would never be easy for her. He hadn’t talked about those things yet either. But he figured, one thing at a time. He’d been the idiot keeping his distance from her when she’d given herself to him over and over. They were connected, and he knew she was willing to be with him, stay with him, but there was a little part of her that was holding back. That was on him.
Zyah turned suddenly, her dark eyes moving over him, taking in his bare chest and thin drawstring pants. Immediately, she walked straight over to him, waiting for him to widen his legs so she could kneel between his thighs and look up at him.
“I don’t want you to want me because I can fix your mind when it’s shattered, Player. Or because we have explosive chemistry. That’s what I’m most afraid of. That the person I am will get lost in the things you need. I love the sex as much as you do. Maybe even more.”
That wasn’t possible, but he wasn’t going to argue the point.
“But sex can sometimes disappear during times of sickness or pregnancy. Or children making you too tired. I don’t know. Whatever. You can’t make that an entire relationship. There has to be more. A foundation. And I don’t want it to be because I’m some kind of nurse, repairing damage to your mind when your illusions get out of hand. I want to be wanted for myself. I deserve that. I want to be seen for me.”
He leaned toward her, looking down into her beloved face. Just looking into it made his heart clench in his chest. He framed her face with his hands, feeling how soft her skin was, running his thumbs over her high cheekbones and then along her jaw.
“Baby, do you honestly think I could know you and not love you for you? See you for you? How could I not? I’m in your mind. I see how you are with your grandmother. I see how you are with Alena. You’re tired and you don’t want that second job, but you’re worried about her. You don’t like to see her struggling.”
He brushed his thumb over her lower lip, that lip that he loved so much. “Even Francine, for all her viciousness, her jealousy, the things she did to you, your grandmother and the others in Sea Haven, there is a part of you that felt sorry for her and wished you could have found a way to help her. You have such compassion in you. It’s impossible not to love you for you. How can you be with me and not know that? Not feel that? Not be totally confident in that? Is it because I was so humiliated for you to know the things that happened to me when I was growing up? Because it wasn’t just when I was a child. That shit continued through my teen years, Zyah. That’s difficult for a man to have to admit to his woman. Did I hurt you so much that you’re finding it hard to forgive me?”
She was too compassionate for that. More than likely she had to come to terms with the fact that he killed so often. That he not only killed when he was young but was still doing it when he hunted— and found— pedophiles.
Her gaze never left his. Her mind was firmly in his. He felt her there, filling him when he’d always felt so alone.
“And you know there is no other woman for me. Right, baby? I don’t cheat. I would never cheat on you, in spite of my name.” He needed to reassure her even though she’d never asked for that reassurance.
“I’m well aware of that, after seeing your memories that you really didn’t respond sexually to other women, that it wasn’t something you just said. You meant it. I couldn’t believe it at first because we were like crazy rabbits.” She flashed a little smile. “We still are. It’s always a marathon with us.”
He was quite willing to begin a marathon anytime, but they had things that were too important on both sides to get out in the open. He needed to be just as fair. She was willing to be honest. He had to be just as honest.
“I love you, Zyah. That isn’t going to change. I want you to be mine any way I can have you. I would prefer to marry you and have you live here with me. When your grandmother is ready and wants to move out of Sea Haven, we can have a place built on the property or put her closer in one of the rooms. But she isn’t going into a care facility. That’s my preference.” He sat back in the chair, waiting to see what she would say.
She rubbed his thighs, her gaze still on his, still without flinching. “I love you too, Player. Very much. That isn’t going to change. I want you to be mine any way I can have you. I am very traditional and would prefer marriage. I love the house. I definitely don’t want my grandmother in a facility, so we can discuss what would be best when the time is right. I do feel worry in your mind, so I think you need to tell me what that’s about.”
That was the big problem with having a really intelligent woman and one that could read minds—at least his. Her hands were distracting, rubbing along his thigh, up close to his groin without actually touching where he needed to be touched. He reached out and slowly unbuttoned the first five buttons of her shirt. It was oversized, and the two edges parted easily, giving him access to the perfect globes of her tits. Her nipples peaked for him instantly. He needed to touch her while he talked to her. Feel her soft skin. Tell himself she would understand and not condemn him or the others.
“You just have to come out and say it, Player.”
He took a deep breath. “I’m not certain how to start. We, meaning Torpedo Ink members, are so different. Everything about us is different, and people don’t get us. Or understand us. To the outside world loo
king in, we’re some kind of perverts. Really depraved people. Czar had this idea that we could start over here. Live differently. Find a way to fit in somehow. But we can’t. Not really.”
She stayed silent, but her hands were gentle on his thighs, and in his mind, he felt the stroke of her mind, as if somehow she was encouraging him to continue.
“I always felt different from the others. Guilty even. I had something that was valuable to Sorbacov. He had a type, little boys, so yeah, he raped me like he did the other boys. He liked to hurt kids and see them hurt. He especially liked to see girls hurt and then teens hurt. I got too old for him. He would bring his friends, ones who would torture, ones who were really sick and depraved, with extreme sexual practices, deviant practices. They killed so many. I escaped most of it because he wanted bombs built. He didn’t dare take the chance that I would be harmed that badly. The others . . .” He broke off, shaking his head.
“Player, I saw what he did to you.”
He nodded. “I know you did, baby, but it was nothing in comparison to what he did and had done to the others. It was difficult to be the odd man out, to know I wasn’t subjected to that extreme the way they were. Sometimes I wondered if they thought I was a traitor.”
“No way. They had to know you were loyal to them. I see them with you.”
“I was a kid, Zyah. Kids think all sorts of mixed-up things.”
He transferred his hands to her hair. All that silk. He loved her hair. He loved everything about her, especially her compassion. She had enough for both of them, which was a good thing, because he wasn’t certain he had much left in him.
“We kept our eyes on one another at all times. We never had clothes. We had to watch out for one another. Seeing each other naked didn’t exactly arouse interest. Then being trained the way we were in sexual practices. We were taught to have control over our bodies by performing on someone while someone else was beating us or using us brutally. The idea was to get the other person aroused while not being aroused. This was done in front of one another. If we could see one another we could keep each other from being killed.”
He saw the dawning comprehension. “What you’re saying is that when Torpedo Ink has parties together, just you, you have sex with your partners but with others in the room because you feel safer.”
He nodded. “Most of the others feel so much less inhibited if they feel the partner they love is safe.”
“You don’t seem to have any inhibitions.”
“Like I said, I was luckier than the others in that I wasn’t as sexually tortured as they were. But I did get used to being with them. And looking out for them. Not to say I can’t do without that, but it does separate me even more.”
He felt her moving through his mind. How did he explain Torpedo Ink to her? He needed to try. He wrapped her hair around his fist.
“We aren’t whole without one another. We try to be, but in order to survive, we had to become one person to get us out of there. We took pieces of one another and wove ourselves together. That’s the only way I have to describe what we did. I need them. They need me. We all are trying to live our lives separate but together if that makes sense. We’re trying to find a way to do what Czar would like us to do, but we’re predators in a world we don’t understand. We were kids, raising each other. Czar was our moral compass, and he still is.”
She nodded. “I can see that. So what you’re asking me is would I ever be willing to go to one of these parties and have sex with you where others might see us?”
“Not at the clubhouse. I wouldn’t be comfortable with that, because there are other chapters now, people I don’t know as well. But here at the house, if the others come over. Or on a run if we go and we’re all together in a campground. How comfortable would you be around the others with me?”
“I don’t honestly know, Player. Here at the house, when we’re crazy, I doubt I’d even notice if someone was around, but I won’t know until it happens. I would be very uncomfortable at the clubhouse, and I have no idea how I would feel on a run. I’ve never been on one. That’s me being as honest as I can be.”
Every time he thought he couldn’t love her any more, she gave him something that made him realize she was branding deeper and deeper into his bones. She was in his soul. Wrapped around his heart. He didn’t understand how she could possibly ever think that he didn’t love her for herself. How could anyone not love Zyah once they knew her just for her? She was honest. She hadn’t condemned him or his brothers and sisters. She hadn’t said no. She had given him what she could, as honestly as she could.
“You do realize that no one can ever measure what someone else’s life or the impact of their past is against anyone else. Each person is different. We’re all born different. You escape into your mind, but your mind is very sensitive—that’s why it can fragment when you build your illusions and hold them too long. You learned, over time, to become strong, but you were a little boy, working day and night to become strong. That took courage and discipline.”
“I thought I was crazy. I thought I was so much less than everyone else. My psychic talent seemed so useless when everyone else had so much to contribute.”
“And yet you could actually cover their bodies in the illusions of sores to keep the worst of the pedophiles from taking them,” she pointed out.
He nodded. “That’s true. I did. But they’d just take another child. I wasn’t strong enough to cover everyone.” He pressed his hand to his face, tried to scrub away the memories that seemed too close. “Sometimes, Zyah, if someone died, I felt as if I killed them myself. Just like every time Sorbacov forced me to go to one of his insane parties and carry in the bombs I made. I had to sit at the table and talk to people I knew were going to die. He would sit there laughing and talking with them, eating dinner and acting as if he were their friend. I built the bombs. I carried them into the party. Czar would cover for my silence, but most of the time, Sorbacov would be furious with me that I didn’t engage with those at the table. I just couldn’t.”
“Because you were too sensitive.”
“Twice, after one of the bombs went off, I tried to kill myself. The first time, Sorbacov saved my life. He and one of his friends used me repeatedly as punishment. I was nine. He beat me with a whip after, and I remember the two of them drinking wine and laughing. I crawled over to this pipe that was in the garden. It was jagged. I’d thought about that pipe so many times when Sorbacov would rip me away from building my bombs. I would just look at that pipe. Just stare at it and know someday I was going to use it.”
Zyah closed her eyes and put her head down on his thigh. Honey. She whispered it, tears dripping in his mind.
His woman. The moment he felt her inside him, she pushed away the memories that were so close. Too close. He dropped his hands into the thick silk of her hair. “Baby, I don’t know how I even went there. I didn’t mean to. You don’t need to hear that shit. There’s no reason for it. You get enough just by fixing my mind when the migraines are so bad.”
She stayed still, letting him have her hair, knowing he needed it. Knowing it was one of his favorite things. His fingers tunneled deep into the mass, loving the silk. Loving her.
“We’re connected, Player. The two of us. It’s always going to be the two of us. So there’s a reason. You need to talk, I need to listen. And it goes both ways. Sometimes I’ll need to talk and you’ll need to listen. That’s what couples do.”
She lifted her head slowly. “I’m so in love with you, Player.” Her dark eyes met his and then she stood up before he could react to her declaration. She walked toward the bed with her unhurried steps, the sway of her hips an invitation. The transparent shirt slid from her body and floated to the floor as she moved up to the bed.
Player got up slowly, loosening the drawstring so his pants fell from his hips. He stepped out of them and followed his woman. She was gorgeous. He would walk through fire for her. She walked around to the other side of the bed so she was facing him. She
put her hands and knees on the bed, and then, deliberately slowly, she crawled across the mattress toward him. Hands and knees. Her eyes on him. Sexy. Her body undulating. Fluid. Almost like a cat’s.
His gaze jumped to her full tits. He loved her breasts and the way they swayed and bounced with every movement. He was going to mark her tits, brand her with his mouth and teeth. He waited, his hand on his cock, as she took her time, stretching out, feet across the mattress toward the wall, legs wide apart. He wanted to see her inner thighs and that sweet little pussy of hers. He was going to brand those thighs as well. Mark them as his.
She lay back, her head off the bed, neck back so her throat was stretched out. She looked back at him while her hand slid down her body, fingers moving over her left tit and down her belly. His gaze followed. His eyes darkened to lust as her fingers disappeared and she moved her hips, coating her fingers before bringing them out to show him.
“This is what happens when I think about having your cock in my mouth, Player,” she whispered and brought her fingers up toward her lips. “I get so hot and slick for you.”
“Is that what you want, baby? My cock in your mouth?” His cock was so fucking hard he thought he was going to shatter.
She licked her fingers. Her hair hung like a dark waterfall of silk. He stepped closer so he could feel the mass against his thighs. Her head was positioned at the perfect height. He ran the pads of his fingers over her throat as he circled his cock with his fist.
She brought her hand back to her pussy and curled her fingers deep. The sight was so sensual, sending little forks of lightning shooting right through his groin. He caught her wrist as she brought her hand up toward her face, turning her fingers to his mouth and sucking them clean. His cock jerked hard.
She reached back with her free hand and stroked his heavy balls. “I want your cock so much my mouth is watering, Player. I can taste you.”
Reckless Road Page 38